Empowering Ourselves: Using Thought Leadership to Drive Business Success

Robin Farmanfarmaian
Speaker and Entrepreneur
www.robinff.com

Robin Farmanfarmaian is a professional speaker, entrepreneur, and angel investor, driving high-level business development for cutting-edge medical and biotech companies. She is currently a VP at Actavalon, a company focused on curing cancer; and Strategic Relations Advisor to MindMaze, which uses VR for stroke and brain injury rehabilitation.

Robin works with entrepreneurs and executives who want to become thought leaders in order to accelerate their career and business goals. Her first book, The Patient as CEO: How Technology Empowers the Healthcare Consumer, is a bestseller on Amazon. Her latest book, The Thought Leader Formula, launches in March 2019.

In this podcast, Robin discusses how she turned to thought leadership as a solution to the #MeToo situations she regularly experienced. She talks about turning thought leadership into a replicatable system, and why it’s so important to think of yourself as a business.

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Cooking Up a Career: When You Say Yes, Adventure Follows

Carla Hall
Author and Chef
www.carlahall.com

Carla Hall is a food contributor on Strahan & Sarah (formerly Good Morning America Day), and was formerly a co-host of ABC’s Emmy award-winning popular lifestyle series The Chew. She has also been a competitor on Bravo’s Top Chef and Top Chef: All Stars. Carla is the author of the cookbooks Carla Hall’s Soul Food: Everyday and Celebration, Carla’s Comfort Food: Favorite Dishes from Around the World, and Cooking with Love: Comfort Food that Hugs You.

In this podcast, Carla discusses her journey through the culinary world from chef to author to celebrity. She talks about why authenticity is at the foundation of her business decisions, why food memories are so critical to us, and how she built a personal brand around comfort foods.

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Start by Stopping: How to Develop Natural Leadership with Fewer Failures

Marcia Daszko
Marcia Daszko & Associates
www.mdaszko.com

The founder of Marcia Daszko & Associates, Marcia Daszko began working in the management consulting field in the 1980s. She co-founded the Bay Area Deming User Group (BADUG), and a non-profit called In2In Thinking. Today, she speaks and teaches executive teams and MBA students a new way to think about leadership—without management fads and “best practices.” She is the author of Pivot, Disrupt, Transform.

In this podcast, Marcia discusses the key factors that allow an organization to create positive transformation. She tells us why adding best practices without a compelling purpose creates complexity but not success, and why it’s important to stop using a language of failure and create a language of success instead.

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Be Audacious: How Socially-Conscious Businesses Can Drive Change

Somya Munjal
Social Entrepreneur and Author
www.somyamunjal.com

Somya Munjal is an Indian-American whose journey to social entrepreneurship began with her mother in India who, as a child, ended up living in extreme poverty during the partition. When Somya’s family migrated to the US, they were met with new experiences of racism and systemic economic challenges which fostered a burning desire to work for the economic empowerment of the disenfranchised and youth education. Today Somya leads several social enterprises, including CPA for the People, Youthful Savings, Audacious Endeavors, and the Youthful Savings Foundation. Somya is the author of Audacious Endeavors: 8 Steps to Social Consciousness that will Spark Your Inner Fire.

In this podcast, Somya discusses why she believes social conscious businesses are crucial in shifting the trajectory of the world and recommends how marketers can help. She tells us why she believes youth development is important for economic change, and introduces many of the tools for building socially conscious businesses that are detailed in her new book.

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Keep Swinging: Secrets to Launching Successful Entrepreneurial Ventures

Rick Steele
Founder and CMO
SelectBlinds, LLC
www.selectblinds.com

Rick Steele is the founder and CMO of SelectBlinds, LLC, an online e-tailer of independently branded window fashions. He manages almost 100 people and serves millions of customers. The author of the book 30 Days to Launch, Rick is committed to helping as many people as possible become successful entrepreneurs an business owners with his expertise in online marketing, brand archetypes, tailored business launching formulas, social media, and living life to the fullest. Rick donates time and financial resources to numerous organizations, including his daughter Kylie’s non-profit animal rescue, Rubicon Rescue.

In this podcast, Rick shares insights he’s gained from a starting a series of businesses – from Beanie Baby collecting to online mortgages to window fashions. He tells us why it’s more important to hit singles, or even strike out, than to wait for the grand slam, and discusses why worrying about what other people think is the biggest factor limiting success for entrepreneurs.

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Mindful Marketing in a Mindless World

Lisa Nirell
Founder
Energize Growth LLC
lisanirell.com

Lisa Nirell, the founder of EnergizeGrowth® LLC, helps CMOs and CEOs accelerate marketing innovation and growth. Top organizations such as Adobe, LinkedIn Learning, Google, AARP, and Hilton hire Lisa to formulate new strategies and launch breakthrough marketing ideas. She leads sever private MO peer communities, including the Marketing Leaders of DC and Marketing Leaders of Atlanta. She is the author of The Mindful Marketer: How to Stay Present and Profitable in a Data-Driven World, and EnergizeGrowth Now: The Marketing Guide to a Wealthy Company.

In this podcast, Lisa share insights in marketing innovation from her six years of surveying CMOs globally. She describes practices marketing leaders can adopt to be more mindful, and explains why today’s marketing leaders need to think about being chaortic to success in today’s fast moving, data-driven world.

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Why the Question IS the Answer

Joseph Bradley
Global VP, Digital & IoT Advanced Services
Cisco Systems
www.questioneering.net

Joseph M. Bradley is global vice president of the Digital & IoT Professional Services Organization at Cisco, and senior research fellow for the Global Center for Digital Business Transformation at IMD. In these roles, he leads a team of multidisciplinary experts and technologist who help CXOs and government leaders transform into digital organizations.

Joseph built the foundation for Cisco’s Internet of Things strategy and the Internet of Everything Practice, by directing Cisco’s influential research that determined $19 trillion of value associated with embracing the Internet of Everything. Previously, he led the Research & Economics, Strategic Communications, and Operations functions of Cisco Consulting. Before Cisco, Joseph was President at Uptake Technologies, CEO at C3 Communications, and Vice President General Manager of the Data Communications group at AT&T.

In this podcast, Joseph tells us why we can’t get the answers we need without asking the right questions. He explains the 3 listening skills that are key for marketers, as well as why Marketing’s dependency on legacy assumptions hurts us. He talks about why AI may be the most transformation technology we’ve seen in a long time and how inclusion and diversity efforts may be transformed through the use of the right questions.

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Nothing to Fear Here: How Conquering Fear Leads to Dramatic Sales Growth

Alex Goldfayn
CEO
The Revenue Growth Consultancy
www.goldfayn.com

Alex Goldfayn , the CEO of The Revenue Growth Consultancy, creates average annual revenue growth of 10-20% for clients. About once a week, Alex delivers keynote speeches, sales kickoffs, breakout sessions and workshops for various associations and companies around the country. The topic is sales growth, but he also dives deeply into confidence (instead of meekness), proactivity (instead of reactivity), and optimism (instead of pessimism). He s the author of the Wall Street Journal bestseller Selling Boldly, published in early April 2018, and The Revenue Growth Habit, selected one of the top 15 business books of the year by Forbes.

In this podcast, Alex tells us why fear is the greatest enemy of sales. He explains the three-step Selling Boldly System, and explains why it’s so important to call the happy customers who do not have a problem. Alex explains how the move from fear to confidence may be the most important thing you do to build your business.

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Bridging the Gap: Tools, Behaviors, and Beliefs that Help Align Strategy And Execution

Bill Sanders
Principal and Managing Director
Roebling Strauss
www.roeblingstrauss.com

Bill Sanders is a business transformation and process innovation expert who drives organizations to execute on innovative strategy and unlock latent potential using their existing strengths. Using his proven holistic approach, Bill rapidly bridges the gap between strategy and execution by identifying the misalignments between strategy, goals, process and execution, and then designing elegant solutions that close those gaps, accelerating growth, profitability, and innovation. He is the author of the book Hierarchy to High Performance.

In this podcast, Bill tells us why static and entrenched mindsets don’t fly in today’s environment of digital transformation. He explains the four factors that ensure strategy and execution are aligned and discusses the need to regularly examine the beliefs we bring into an organization.

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Step Up to Stand Out: Write That Book in a Flash

Dan Janal
Founder, PR Leads
www.WriteYourBookInaFlash.com

Dan Janal helps businesses build their brands with books. He has written more than a dozen books, six of which have been translated into other languages. An award-winning daily newspaper reporter and business newspaper editor, Dan is a publicity and marketing expert who has helped more than ten thousand authors and experts build their platforms over the last 17 years with his highly regarded PR Leads services. His latest book is Write Your Book In a Flash.

In this podcast, Dan tells us why the changes in the publishing industry offer outstanding opportunities for business people who have something to say. He explains the 10 essential steps to writing a book and the 3 biggest mistakes writers make that cost time, money, and self-confidence. He clarifies the roles of book coaches, ghostwriters and editors, and outlines the first steps to take to get that first book jumpstarted.

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